


Sense Memory

by AVMabs



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/F, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Take your fandom to work, homegrown theatre kid AU, it seemed like a good idea at the time, ok this is mostly self projection, right down to the crying, the views of roy mustang do not necessarily reflect my own views, this whole lesson is literally a lesson i had once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6414796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVMabs/pseuds/AVMabs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It sure would be nice if Roy had come to terms with having a best friend who was absolutely, definitely, definitively dead.  Throwing a whole darn tootin' lesson on engaging with your own emotions into the mix was not helping the matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense Memory

**Author's Note:**

> For Take Your Fandom to Work Day 2016.

Hedda Gabler was a terrible, terrible play. Well, it was actually a very good play, but not the way that Elric kid played Eilert. 

Roy knew he should have been cast as Eilert, or at least Judge Brack – but no cigar. He’d been lumped as Tesman – and Hawkeye wasn’t even playing Hedda opposite him. Instead, he was playing against the props girl – God forbid she come out from backstage and do some actual acting.

He hated the two new teachers who had come out of the shadows in the name of ‘equal opportunity’. Theatre was not equal opportunity. Theatre was work, and to get the job you have to pass the interview. Roy assumed, anyway. There were bonuses to living in a family-owned pub. Also, they were both really scary. That bit.

Mrs Curtis, at least, didn’t hate the class. She just engaged in… tough love – most unlike General Armstrong who somehow, between climbing the military ranks and continuing her family legacy, had qualified as a drama teacher in order to terrorise kids like him and the Elric kid. One of the Elric kids, anyway. She was okay – kind of – with the other one.

In fairness, it seemed like that was the case with everyone in Drama.

Ed Elric – bad. Al Elric – good.

Hawkeye said it was a gross generalisation. Roy said it was true.

“Okay!” said Mrs Curtis, one arm in the air for silence. The room gathered into a circle and sat cross-legged, not unlike nursery children, on the floor. “Now that we’ve read through the burning of the manuscript, we’re going to be discussing sense memory.”

Roy’s heart sank. He just needed to distance himself – that would be fine. He could do that.

“I want everyone to think of an object that is precious to them. Don’t tell us why it’s significant.” There was a moment of relative quiet and then – “Silence!” Relative quiet was not enough.

Roy closed his eyes and willed the filter between his mouth and his brain to work, because it hadn’t last time and he wasn’t up for it not working this time.

“Go. Miss Rockbell, start, please.”

Ah. The props kid. She was chipper, usually. “Um,” she began quietly. Unusual. She took a deep breath and restarted. “It’s – um – it’s a prosthetic, prosthetic arm,” she said, and blushed deep red as a few of the other kids giggled. The Elrics, Roy noted, were not amongst them.

“Quiet!” snapped Mrs Curtis.

Miss Rockbell swallowed. “It’s – it’s like any prosthetic arm, but an earlier model. Around 1995, but with some custom adjustments.” She paused, glanced up at the Elric kid’s arm – he wore gloves, usually, but everyone knew his arm wasn’t real - and then continued. “It isn’t finished and I still have the anaesthetic plans.”

“Thank you. Mr Elric.”

This was the younger Elric, the good one.

He plastered a smile onto his face before he started. “This is going to sound really stupid…” he began.

“It won’t,” Mrs Curtis interjected, and gave Alphonse a small smile.

Alphonse hesitated. “It’s just a few pressed flowers,” he said, and then fell silent.

“What kind of flowers?” asked Mrs Curtis.

Alphonse fiddled with his medical bracelet. “Daisies,” he said. “They’re – they’re from our front garden, around six years old.”

The older Elric was watching Alphonse like a hawk. He was weird about that kind of stuff – Alphonse stuff. Roy supposed it was fair enough. 

“Thank you, Mr Elric,” said Mrs Curtis. “Mr Havoc.”

Roy watched as Jean began digging through his pockets for something or another, until he finally came up with what he was looking for. It was a lighter. Mrs Curtis’s lips pursed in disapproval, but she said nothing.

“She’s a couple months old,” said Havoc glumly. “She works like a charm.”

“Okay. Miss Hawkeye.”

Roy tensed up. Guess Elric wasn’t the only one who got a little weird when it came to certain people. Ross was holding her hand. It really should have been Roy doing that – not romantically like Ross, but Hawkeye had never climbed through Ross’s open window on difficult nights.

“It’s…” Hawkeye swallowed. “It’s a business card for a… for a private plastic surgery company.”

There was a murmur of dissention across the class although, to Mrs Curtis’s credit, her face displayed nothing. Roy wondered for a moment whether she had to know this stuff, as a teacher. Maybe that’s how she maintained stoicism in the face of that revelation.

Although – it wasn’t so much of a revelation, really, because Hawkeye was wearing a turtleneck, as usual.

“Miss Ross.”

It was with a faint sense of alarm that Roy realised he was next, after Ross.

“Elric.” Could always tell when it was the older Elric because of the distaste in Mrs Curtis’s tone. 

Edward crossed his arms. “I don’t want to.”

Mrs Curtis sighed and – for a moment – looked as though she was about to shout. “Fine,” she said. 

“Mr Mustang.”

He was next.

He smirked. “It’s a tankard,” he drawled. “Made of fine glass, has my name inscribed on the bottom.”

He pretended he didn’t hear Elric’s scoffing, or the dry disapproval in Mrs Curtis’s tone as she thanked him.

Somehow, the last few students didn’t seem very significant anymore. 

“Okay, good,” said Mrs Curtis. “Find a space.”

Finally, they were getting down to some actual drama. Nice. 

“I want you to imagine that object. Go through the motions of touching it, smelling it. I want silence during this activity.”

There was a murmur as people shuffled about and knuckled down to business, sitting down and stretching and the like. Roy just hoped the underfloor heating was turned on – he was beginning to get cold. Lo and behold, as he sat down on the studio floor, a flush of comfortable warmth spread under him. 

And then he had a tankard in his hands. It was cold, not necessarily ever used. He was careful not to let it touch the floor – he didn’t want it getting warm. It was the one tankard from which he had never drunk, and it certainly didn’t belong downstairs where old men with filthy tobacco-stained hands and dirty fingernails could get at it.

Letting it touch a public floor would dirty it.

“Okay!” Roy jumped as Mrs Curtis’s interruption snapped him out of his reverie. “I hope you’ve all had enough time to feel that.”

Yes, Roy had, and the reminder that it was not real was enough to make him feel thoroughly uncomfortable. He wiped his hands on his tracksuit bottoms and tried to slow his breathing. He would be fine.

When he next glanced up, Elric was watching him with a curious expression on his face. Roy looked away.

“Now I want you to imagine that somebody has taken that away from you.” Mrs Curtis left a moment for comprehension. “You have seven minutes to compose your feelings to them.” 

After the majority of the class had scattered to fetch paper and the like, the class fell into silence, save for Alphonse’s quiet tapping on laptop keys. 

Roy was not in the majority of those who had fetched paper. He sat, and his mind was clear of any pesky thoughts. It was not a very interesting seven minutes.

“Okay.” Mrs Curtis’s voice cut through the silence. “Come and sit at the front. You have the chance to confront that person now.” She paused. “If anyone laughs, I will singlehandedly escort you to Principal Bradley’s office and bitch you out in front of him.” 

“Havoc, you first.” 

Jean staggered to the front, leaning heavily on his cane. His performance was, well… Jean had an easier life than most of the kids in the room. Two parents, no horrific life experiences – even his legs, which were admittedly not the best they could be, were not going to get any worse. Jean was secure and losing a lighter, to Jean, was just a disappointment.

The props girl was next. She cut hers short halfway through. Perhaps, Roy thought, there was more to her than he had thought.

And then Hawkeye. She gave an impressively balanced performance – a little over-rehearsed, maybe, but honest and guarded at the same time. It probably helped that she could google the clinic anyway. Even so, the way Ross hugged her afterwards looked a lot like she’d just escaped death. 

The next couple of kids gave trite, stereotypical performances about aunts they’d probably only met once and objects they couldn’t give a crap about going missing. Anything for sentimental value.

Alphonse – guarded, smiley; Roy couldn’t shake the feeling that at least some of the smiles were genuine. Ross was fine – she wasn’t as guarded as Alphonse or Riza, but not quite as emotional as Props Girl.

“Mr Mustang.”

Oh. 

Oh, shit.

He swallowed and took slow, measured paces into the space. Nothing prepared or rehearsed. He imagined, for a moment, the tankard hitting the alley pavement, shattering into pieces and pieces.

“I don’t care about the tankard,” he started to a greasy man in a waistcoat, which was stupid, because of course he cared about the tankard. “I-I mean – yes, I care about the tankard but you can’t…” he took a deep breath and swallowed harshly. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing – ever – it’s not enough that you – that you…” He stopped.

“That’s enough,” he said. “You don’t need to hear more.”

Mrs Curtis drew herself up to height. “Fine. You can sit down.”

Roy did not sit down. He took a step forward, felt a stupid lump acting ferociously to block his airway, and pushed through the double doors into the hallway. This wouldn’t do – not with lessons ending in five minutes. He ducked into the bathroom, locked himself in a cubicle, and slammed his head into his hands.

This was ridiculous. If he could just collect himself, then he could walk back into class two minutes later with a coffee and cover everything up - yet here he was, wiping his eyes stupidly on the sleeve of his sweater like a kid.

And, then, as if to rub salt into the wound – “Hey, Mustang.” Fuck.

“Hey, Mustang, get the fuck out of the cubicle.”

If he stayed very still, perhaps Elric would go away.

“Mustang, I can see your stupid blue Doc Martens.” 

Fine, okay. He strode out of the cubicle and crossed his arms. “These shoes are not stupid,” he insisted. He sounded like a kid with a cold. “They cost me a small fortune.”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Ed. “Izumi wants you back in class.” He paused. “You could have just sat it out,” he said.

“I’m not a quitter,” said Roy.

Ed snorted. “If you say so, I guess. It’s not like nobody’s seen you guarding the memorial bench like people actually want to vandalise it.” Ed blinked, lowered his gaze slightly, and pressed his lips together. “Just come back to class.”

“Fine,” said Roy. “Fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> cool have a nice day


End file.
